FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

1) How much is shipping to my country?

You can easily find all of the available shipping options when you begin the checkout process-
After you enter your name/address/country, and have all the items you want in your shopping cart,you will get to a page that shows you several different shipping options, and the cost for each option. Our site connects with the USPS, UPS, and FedEx sites, to show you shipping costs based on their current rates.

2) My order was damaged, who can I yell at?

If your order is damaged or lost en route to your home, and you did not insure it, RalphAmerica CANNOT be held responsible. Same goes if you gave us the wrong address, zipcode, name or you provided us with any information that would lead to your package getting lost. All UPS shipments are automatically insured up to $100 unless otherwise specified during checkout - When we say insured, we mean that if your items are damaged, then we will be reimbursed for the damage, and will send you another copy. If you gave us faulty information, no insurance may be claimed on your shipment. If you live outside of the USA, the insurance you claim on your shipment is the amount you will be taxed on, and we can no longer insure international packages shipped via Air Mail (only UPS). RalphAmerica is not responsible for any fees, dues, taxes or tariffs invoked by your country or mail service. If you are trying to track your order, please go to this page and enter your order information. That is the only way to do it. If you call us, we'll have no idea, as we don't ship from our office anymore.

3) What's Your Refund Policy?

You have 10 days from ship date to contact us for a refund in the case of damaged/faulty merchandise. We will issue a credit card credit or paypal refund once the item is returned. Exchanges can be done within 30 days of ship date. Customer pays shipping back to RalphAmerica unless the product was damaged or is faulty.

If your order is damaged by UPS, you may call them at 1800-PICK-UPS, and file a claim with them - just tell them your order was damaged in shipping, and they'll do the rest - no paperwork to fill out or anything - then they'll contact us and we'll refund your money. Hopefully they won't damage it though.

If your order does not reach you by US mail, RalphAmerica cannot be held responsible for lost packages. We can look up your delivery confirmation number or your UPS tracking number if you go here and enter your order information. Because we are using a new shipping center, the automated emails with tracking info aren't going out. We hope to change this soon. But you can still access this information by going here.

4) Can I send my band's demo to RALPH?

Ralph is not a label. It hasn't been for many, many, many years. We are the official merchandising/mail order company for The Residents. We only work with The Residents.

5) Can you tell me about Renaldo and the Loaf, and all of their releases? Which ones do I still need to fill my collection? Who does the 3rd song on side one of Potatoes and where can I find more of their music? Can you ask Fred Frith if he'll play on one of my tracks? What happened to Chrome? Is Tuxedo Moon touring anytime soon? What kind of tea does Chris Cutler enjoy?

Any of these questions, or very similarly formed/related questions aimed towards the old RALPH Label won't really get you very far with us. We didn't start running Ralph until 1999, and anything that happened with Ralph Records previously is far before our time. Sure we are familiar with several of the artists, and own many of those records in our personal collections, but we don't have the resources to answer these types of questions effectively. For more info on what Ralph Records turned into (it became T.E.C. Tones, which later evolved into Esoteric Music) check the EMG site . For more on Renaldo and the Loaf, check their fan site.

6) I don't have a credit card, how can I pay you?

We also take PayPal. That's it.

7) I want to use a Residents song in my movie/play/TV show/commercial/dance remix etc...

The Cryptic Corp. is always happy to listen to requests for these sort of things. Keep in mind, they get a lot of these requests, most of which turn out to be a little flakey. Typically they usually ask that you give them at least (and this is minimal people) one month to consider your request. 11th hour requests aren't usually considered seriously (unless you're a large jean manufacturer or cell phone company and used their music without permission in your multi-national ad campaign.) You can send those requests to bigbrother@residents.com.

8) I want to show a Residents video/film/DVD/CD-Rom at my local theatre/frat house/college/film festival....

See answer #7

9) So do you guys know The Residents?

No...really. No joking. We don't know them. Seriously...

10) I'm coming to San Francisco, can I visit your store?

We're not a store, and we no longer warehouse our inventory here either. So there's not much to see except for our furrowed sweaty brows peering over our computer monitors. or maybe you want to have us make a custom tshirt for you...

11) When is their next release coming out? What's coming next? What are their plans? Will they tour soon?

These sort of questions are usually answered by our announcements, or in the new Residents.com News Bog (constantly updated with news). Save yer dime (or dollar, or whatever it costs you to call and ask us.) Not that we mind talking to you, but you can save your money for the newest, latest Ralph Limited Edition CD/DVD wonderfullness. We are often the last to know of a lot of plans and ideas that The Residents have cooking. So the first place to look for answers would be the News site above.

12) Why didn't The Residents come to my part of the world on their last tour? They never come here...

These decisions are never made by The Residents. We're usually lucky we can gather them and get them on a plane/bus/train to do anything. As independent as they have always been with their music and performance, they leave these decisions up to those who make booking decisions for a living. Usually if there are a lot of people in your town who want to have a Residents show (and you don't live in Antarctica or another destination that makes for awkward tour routing), they'll eventually find a way to get there. Sometimes not. But if a promoter in your town thinks they can make money, they'll usually try to get them there.

13) Can you tell me if you have __________________ (insert "Title in Limbo" "Santa Dog" "Wormwood Live" "Subterannean Modern" any Yello release, any Renaldo and the Loaf release, any early Ralph release, any MX80 release, any Chrome release) in stock? Maybe you have an extra copy lying around the office? Do you know if someone else will be re-releasing this soon? I lost/ate/destoyed/got stolen/baby puked on/roomate scratched it/girlfriend tossed it my copy of ___________ do you have another copy?

We only have what is available on the site. If something rare-like shows up in a quantity that we can sell, we try to make that available. But we have no contact with the past Ralph artists or any knowledge of the rights to those releases. If something is not on the site, there's a very good chance that we can't get it in stock anymore due to being out of print, or unavailable in some way or another.

14) YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I totally have to get a hold of RALPH AMERICA NOW!!!!

Okay! Okay! try writing dren at ralphamerica dot com.